Tag Archives: food gifts

This is a twist on seasoned crackers for those that enjoy a spicy kick. I make a triple batch of seasoned crackers every December to include in my goodie bags with assorted sweets, and this year I made a second spicy batch for those that like things on the spicy side. They are great on their own as a snack, but as with the seasoned crackers, one of my favorite things to do with these crackers is to sprinkle them on soup as a garnish, especially tomato soup or chili. And let’s not forget the Super Bowl is coming up, right? These would be perfect for the heat-lovin’, snack-eatin’ guests at your party.

I have a lot of faults. I still wear Crocs (and love them). I always want to lose weight, but like cake more. Once you get to know me, I can be kinda bossy. I am a total dessert Nazi and will threaten bodily harm to anyone who refrigerates my goodies and eats them cold. Thou shalt not eat my desserts cold unless they’re intended to be cold or…

Veronica Miller: Dessert Nazi

Another of my faults is getting irritated by things people do that I’m guilty of as well. Such as over-apologizing. I’m a total over-apologizer and I think it’s knowing that and not liking it about myself that also makes me cringe when other bloggers do it. I hate it when a blogger apologizes for bad photos because what they’re considering “bad” is something I could only accomplish in my wildest dreams. And yet here I am, biting my tongue to keep from apologizing for these photos and the over-processing I did to try and remove the blue hue on the background.

Well you know what, I’m not apologizing. So there. You can hate them and I can hate them but they’re the best I can do and if you think I care enough to actually learn how to take good photos and learn how to edit them properly, you’ve totally overestimated my interest in photography. I just don’t care, therefore I’m not apologizing. You might want to change your color settings to black and white to avoid eye strain, though.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about this popcorn. Scratch that, there’s really not much to say. I mean, look at the photographs. It looks delicious, even with the harsh contrast and weird blue hue, right? Well let me tell you, it tastes even better. I mean, Snickers and caramel corn? Yeah, that was meant to happen.

I made this for Christmas treats last year and was a big hit! I now buy mini Snickers on sale after holidays just so I can make this popcorn and Sneaky Snickers Cookies. Fo shizzle, mah grizzle. Get ‘r done, with yonce grizz-maleon toes!

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Pop the kernels in an air popper into a large bowl. Set aside. In a large 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Heat over medium high, stirring frequently, until the mixture starts to boil. Stop stirring, reduce heat to medium, and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. Pour over popcorn and mix well. Transfer to a large roasting pan and bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Stir in the Snickers and bake three more minutes to allow them to melt into the popcorn a little. Spread out onto waxed paper and drizzle candy coating over the top. Allow to cool completely before breaking up and storing in an airtight container or Ziploc bags.

Like this:

I posted the recipe for the friendship fruitcake starter yesterday, and although the holidays are still far in the distance, I wanted to post the full recipe for the fruitcakes now to help you decide whether or not you want to embark upon this fruitcake adventure, because the decision will need to be made fairly soon. The starter takes three weeks to make, and the cake itself takes a month. So I figured you’d need a better description of the resulting cake and photos to help you understand why you should bother with any cake that is going to take this long to make.

After you have your starter ready, you will add peaches, pineapple, and maraschino cherries to it over time, along with copious amounts of sugar. Your fruit will become essentially candied in it’s own sugary juices, giving you the most flavorful candied fruit you could ever add to fruitcake. This fruit beats the stems off store-bought candied fruit. It is just sooo….fruity. Usually when I taste a candied cherry, it doesn’t taste like much except sweet. This candied fruit is sweet, but has so much flavor!

The actual time you will spend working on the starter and the fruit is maybe a minute a day, and totally worth the result. And if the fruit itself wasn’t enough, the recipe for the cake itself is outstanding. I have two versions available, but both are moist and delicious, and studded with this magical fruit, nuts, and shredded coconut. Absolutely fantastic and nothing like the fruit cake you last turned your nose up at.

Now, let’s talk about the batter that surrounds the fruit, nuts, and coconut. Usually, friendship fruit cake is made with a cake mix. Two of them, to be exact. When I made this cake last year on Christmas eve, I only had one mix, and of course every grocery store was closed, and I couldn’t find a single convenience store that sold cake mixes. Rather than let the lack of a second mix defeat me, I decided to halve the recipe for the cake (what I now call the “easy version” although technically it’s the “original version”) and use half the fruit for it, then make a batter from scratch to mix the remaining fruit into.

To tell you the truth, I really can not pick a favorite. I love, love, love them both. In fact, I actually would recommend you do the same as me, halving both recipes and using half the fruit in both to see if you can pick one. (Just be very careful to halve everything–this can get tricky if you don’t physically write down the new measurements before starting.) They are so different and both so good in their own way.

The cake mix cake is very moist, and very sweet with a great cake mix flavor. I’d say the cake mix version has more of a holiday feel than the other, because it is sweeter. The cream cheese cake is less sweet, the slight tang of the cream cheese pairing nicely with the sweet, candied fruit. It tastes more “real,” for lack of a better word, more home made. It seems more of like a cake to enjoy with tea, and this would be a great version to make throughout the year. I keep wanting to pick the cream cheese one as my favorite, until I remember how nice the cake mix one was, so I have given up. I leave the decision entirely up to you, but either way, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Stir every day for ten days. When not stirring mixture, keep it covered with a splatter guard, paper towel, foil, or a loose lid. Let sit at room temperature. Do not refrigerate it or cover it airtight. A pan of water underneath the jar or bowl will keep the ants out, but I had no problem with bugs since I made mine in the winter.

Day 30
Drain fruit and reserve it and the liquid. Pour the liquid into three glass pint jars. Save one for yourself for your next fruit cake, and give two to friends, along with a copy of this recipe. Cake must be started within 3 days after receiving the starter or you should freeze the starter to use at a later date. Do not use plastic or metal containers to store liquid.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour two 12-cup Bundt pans or four large loaf pans. In a very large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and eggs. Stir in the raisins, nuts and coconut, and the reserved fruit from the starter. Stir until all ingredients are well combined. The batter will be stiff. Spread batter into the prepared cake pans. Bake for 60-75 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Sit on wire racks and wait ten minutes before turning them out onto the racks to cool completely. I spray my cakes thoroughly with water while cooling to help make them more moist—the water absorbs and does not change the flavor. Store in an airtight container or wrap in plastic wrap. Serve at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour two 12-cup Bundt pans or 4 large loaf pans; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a separate large bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Beat in the oil. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract until incorporated. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; the batter will be thick. When barely any streaks remain, mix in the raisins, nuts and coconut, and the reserved fruit from the starter stirring well. Scrape batter into the prepared pans, smoothing the tops. Place the cakes in the oven and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Yes, I know it isn’t even Halloween yet and you’re thinking I’m crazy for posting such an obvious December holiday-related recipe, but bear with me, I have good reason for posting this early.

Many of us have heard of and possibly been gifted (AKA cursed) with friendship bread starter. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can either click here to find out more, or just pretend you never heard about it and maybe you can live out the rest of your life in friendship bread-less bliss. OK, I have to admit that friendship bread is delicious, but it never dies and once the starter infiltrates your circle of friends, you practically have to start shooting people to get them to stop pushing it off on you.

Well, friendship fruitcake starter is a whole different ball of wax. This starter is not the same flour/sugar/milk mixture that is aged and fed like a sourdough, nor is it as widespread, at least not in my neck of the woods. This starter is a thick, red, fruity syrup that you use to candy real, non-dried fruit, and you have enough leftover after making your cakes that you can either pass it on to two other friends, or keep all three jars for yourself and freeze them to use throughout the year.

The kind of fruitcake you get from this starter is also unique. It is not the typical disgusting sickeningly-sweet brick you find in grocery stores. In fact, I can tell you flat out that this is not only the only good fruitcake I have ever had in my life, it is actually so good that I would eat it any time of year, not just because it’s a holiday tradition. Seriously, you’ve never had a non-alcoholic* fruitcake that tasted this good, and maybe not even one that has been completely doused with alcohol could be better than this.

*Brandy is used in this initial starter recipe, but since you are using it to candy fruit, and not adding the liquid itself to the cake, you will put very little alcohol into the cake because of it, and the amount you put in will bake out. Also, once you make this starter, you never again have to add brandy to the future starters that come from this batch, so the percentage of alcohol will become nill after several batches.

If you don’t already have one of these starters in your freezer, and you would like to try this fruitcake for yourself, you will need to plan ahead and make the starter fairly soon, which is why I’m sharing the recipe for it now rather than after Thanksgiving. The starter takes three weeks to make, and the fruitcake takes another month. If you want to make small loaves as gifts before Christmas, start your starter now-within the next week or so. If you want to have your fruitcake ready on Christmas day, start by November 4 or 5 at the very latest. I guarantee you that you will have some very impressed people when you give them this fruitcake or at your party where you serve it, and many disappointed that you only have two starters to share.

I believe it will most likely take further persuasion on my part to convince you that this fruitcake is worth your time, so I will be following this recipe tomorrow with the two recipes I have for the cake itself, one using a mix, and one that I created from scratch.

*A big thank you to my friend Cheryl in Florida for passing the starter recipe and instructions on to me since she couldn’t give me one of her starters in person.*

Store at room temperature, covered with a lid or plastic wrap, for three weeks, stirring at least twice a week. Mixture will become more and more red as time passes. This is what mine looked like on day 21:

Drain fruit and reserve the liquid. You should have two cups of liquid, and this is your starter. It won’t look as red or thick as the photos above because those are photos of the starter you get after you use this initial starter to candy your fruit when you actually start making the cake. The 2 cups of liquid you have now will all be used for candying fruit.

You can save the sweetened, brandied fruit for another use (topping on ice cream, turn it into jelly, etc.) or discard.

I added some cinnamon and instant pectin (it needed quite a lot, 1/2 cup if I remember correctly) to mine after pureeing in a food processor to make a brandied holiday fruit jam. It wasn’t sweet enough, so I’d suggest adding your sweetener of choice if you go this route.

***

Wow, guys! Thirty people signed up for the cookie swap as soon as it was open for business. I’m kinda scared of your enthusiasm, and excited by it at the same time. :D Rock on!

I drafted this post on December 26th, 2009. It is the oldest draft in my collection, so I’m pretty excited to finally have a fairly decent photo of it so I can share the recipe with you!

On my wedding day eleven years ago, my new Grandmother (this one) gifted me with her church’s fundraiser cookbook*, which included many recipes from her and other members of my new family. I treasure it! I love spiral-bound recipe books like these because they are filled with tried-and-true recipes that real people use–simple, unpretentious, and delicious.

Love that it has a cornucopia on it--perfect for my blog! :)

Take this one, for example. I had to giggle when I read the name “White Trash.” I really like the name because it’s funny and does accurately describe the appearance, but it is also known in classier circles as “Christmas Crunch.” I don’t care what you call it, it’s salty and sweet and addictively-delicious!

So this is the last recipe I’ll be sharing before the holiday, and I think you’ll find it a perfect treat to whip up if you need a last-second snack or gift. Dennis and I are heading to Abilene as soon as we get out of church to spend Christmas** with his family, and will be back some time on Monday so I won’t be posting anything else until Tuesday at the earliest.

Mix all ingredients except chocolate or almond bark in a large bowl. Melt chocolate or almond bark as package directs; pour over mixture, mixing to coat well. Spread out onto waxed paper to dry. Break into chunks and store in airtight containers or Ziploc bags. Saves well for several weeks.

*1 lb. of almond bark is 8 rectangles.

Recipe source: tweaked from Donna A’s recipe.

*Although I’m very thankful for this cookbook, I don’t advocate any church fundraising beyond the weekly collection. You can click here for a good article that reflects my thoughts on church fundraisers.

**You can also click here to find out why I’m a Christian that doesn’t celebrate Christmas as the day of Christ’s birth, and why the mention of it is never on our holiday cards! Don’t be too alarmed, we will be honoring our savior in worship on Christmas, because it is the Lord’s day, just like every Sunday. :)

It’s been a while since I posted any Amish Friendship Bread recipes, and that’s because this is the last one I made and I wanted to save it for December, since the flavor combination reminded me of Christmas.

Are you one that identifies certain foods with certain seasons and holidays, like I do? For me, pumpkin and pies are fall and Thanksgiving. December and Christmas is cookies, chocolate, and anything spiked with alcohol. Like this bread!

This was actually my favorite variation that I came up with, though I haven’t made very many yet. The bread is so incredibly moist, is nice and chocolatey with a punch of rum and just a hint of cinnamon from the sugar coating. Very festive, and so yummy! This would make great gifts, and I plan to break out one or two of the starters I froze in order to give some away this year. (If you don’t have any starters in your own freezer, you can click here to learn how to make your own.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Generously butter two loaf pans, then dust with the cinnamon sugar. Tap out excess and save for topping.

Whisk the eggs into the starter, then whisk in the oil and rum. Add everything but the chocolate chips and whisk until blended. Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips. Divide batter between pans, then sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over the tops. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips over the top and bake for an hour. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely on wire rack.

Something has come over me. For the past two days, I haven’t been able to sleep until two in the morning and during the day, I’ve been so tired that it literally feels like my eyes are going to fall out of their sockets.

The reason? Caramels. Cararmels have turned me into a zombie woman. They’ve completely taken over my life and I can get no rest!

Two days ago I got the brilliant idea to finally give homemade caramels a go. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple they were to prepare. They weren’t, however, easy to remove from the pan, and so I stayed up until two in the morning scraping each square from the pan and wrapping them in waxed paper. And eating every other one.

I have to say, store-bought caramels can’t hold a candle to homemade. Homemade is soft, gooey, buttery, caramelly deliciousness. They are so delicious that I couldn’t resist making another batch the following day. After all, I made the first batch for gifts and now I needed more for an upcoming Christmas party. (Not for myself…of course not.) And besides, I needed to figure out a way to keep the caramels from sticking to the pan and what better way than trial and error?

So I made a second batch, lining the pan with waxed paper and spraying it with oil. And I stayed up until two in the morning the second day in a row, scraping each piece off the waxed paper, then dipping them in chocolate (because party caramels should be pretty and irresistable).

And they were. Irresistable. I ate every other one. Again.

Obviously I also encountered a problem with photography as well. I absolutely could not stop shooting photos of these beautiful things. After shooting picture after picture, I eventually ran to the garage and got out Christmas decorations (I’ve been too busy making caramels to decorate with them yet) to use for props. All told, I took well over 100 pictures of them. I’m not even kidding. Then it took me almost an hour to narrow down the ones I wanted to keep to the myriad I’m posting here.

And now it’s nearly one in the morning, and what am I doing? Staying up so I can tell everyone about these fabulous things. Like I said, they’ve taken over my life. And I suppose I’ve happily relinquished control!

As for the problem with the caramel sticking to the pan, I now know you have to very generous with the butter. I should have consulted my friend, Teri, before I made the caramels, since I knew she makes them every year at this time. Ah well, now I have an excuse to make another batch. You know, just to see if it works.

Soft Caramels

Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan (my 3-quart was the perfect size–don’t go any smaller) and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and continue to boil, stirring constantly, for ten minutes. Set the timer as soon as it begins to bubble and take the pan off as soon as it goes off. Pour caramel into a buttered 9×13 pan and let cool completely before cutting & wrapping in squares of waxed paper.

Tips for success

*If you have a candy thermometer, it wouldn’t hurt to attach it to the pan to make sure the caramel is at 245 degrees F when you remove it from the heat. My first batch was actually at 240 when I removed it and it still turned out fine, but my second batch reached 245 in nine minutes so I removed it early and it was the same texture as the first batch.

*You can stir in a teaspoon of vanilla after you remove the pan from the heat. I did this the second time but didn’t notice an improvement in flavor. It seemed just as good without the vanilla, so I didn’t include it in the ingredient list.

*When you pour the caramel into the buttered pan, there will be some that clings to the bottom and sides. Don’t scrape this out on top of the pan of caramel like I did on my first batch. Have a small buttered bowl on hand and scrape it into that. This caramel will be harder than the other caramel, because it remained in contact with the heat longer. If you scrape it out, you will have a hard piece among the soft and when you try to cut it, the softer caramel will squish out and it won’t be pretty and perfect. This caramel is totally edible, just a little more chewy, so you can snack on it while rolling your evenly-textured caramels into waxed paper.

*On both batches, I put salted, roasted peanuts on half of the pan. The salty/sweet combo is yummy and kind of reminds me of a PayDay. And when you dip the pieces in chocolate, it’s kind of like a Snickers. Except it’s way better than either because it’s homemade! If you want to add nuts to the whole batch, you can stir them in after removing the pan from the heat. If you only want half the batch with nuts or want two or more types of nuts, dump the caramel into the pan and then sprinkle the nuts over the top. The first batch I tried putting the nuts on half of the bottom and pouring the caramel over, but the nuts got all pushed around and then tons of air bubbles kept rising up and I had to keep popping them so that the surface didn’t look all funkalicious.

*If you’d like to dip the caramels in chocolate, you can either melt chocolate almond bark, an equal amount of chocolate chips with almond bark (this makes the color darker & it tastes better while still setting up nicely) or you can melt chocolate with some shaved paraffin wax. (This makes the chocolate shiny & makes it set up really nicely. You can find it on the baking aisle.) I melted 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I think milk chocolate would be even better!) with 1/8 of a block of finely shaved paraffin in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until everything was melted and smooth and shiny. Dip the caramels with a fork, tap off the excess and slide them onto a sheet of waxed paper to set. I ground a bit of sea salt over the plain caramels while the chocolate was still wet because I like salted caramels and it did have a nice flavor. For a prettier presentation, I would use flaky sea salt (also on the baking aisle).

*I encourage you to dip at least half the caramels in chocolate. I didn’t think caramel could get any better after I made it from scratch. And then I dipped it. And dipped some more!